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saiyukisecretsanta-blog · 6 years

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This is for ChandaBeard, happy holidays if that’s your thing!

A.N.:I started out with a vague idea for kidfic and it turned into this monstrosity of a post-canon thing I hope is readable. This is less than half of it, but the rest needs editing and a proper ending, which I’ll hopefully have by the end of the week or so.

I’m snail_stand on twitter and bunnyfication on AO3.

Title: Lost and Found

Pairings: Sanzo/Goku, background Hakkai/Gojyo

Genre: drama

Rating: R-15

Warnings: Genocide, more briefly: violence, masturbation.

Chapter 1:

Later, Goku only remembered parts of the battle at Houtou castle.

He remembered seeing the castle in the distance as they camped for the last time before the approach, perching on a peak with the strange spires of stone around it like a clawed hand.

Sanzo had stood looking at it, still as a statue.

“We don’t have much time left,” he’d said, as if they didn’t all know.

The air had felt heavy, like the feeling right before a thunderstorm, but wrong, oily. Goku could have sworn there were voices right on the edge of hearing, whispering. It might just have been the black birds circling around the castle, their calls seeming to mock them.

He didn’t know if the others heard them, but Hakkai’s posture was too stiff where he kneeled on one of the sleeping mats they’d already put out in lieu of a fire they didn’t dare light. Gojyo hovered close by, his usual jokes and relaxed attitude forced.

Later, once they’d gone to bed, Goku could hear them whispering, and didn’t listen. He wished…

“Sanzo,” he whispered, knowing that he wasn’t sleeping either.

“What?” Sanzo grunted.

Goku hadn’t thought of what to say, just that he needed to say something. And now he couldn’t actually think of anything.

Instead, he reached out a hand, unable to see, but finding Sanzo’s wrist anyway. When his fingers closed around it, he felt the bones beneath the skin and muscle, the steady beat of a pulse beneath his thumb.

There was something soothing about that, and Goku closed his eyes, feeling suddenly sleepy.

“Whatever happens, I’m glad I came with you,” he said, the words easy now, insufficient as they were.

The silence after was so long that Goku was nearly asleep when Sanzo shifted on his pallet. Long, narrow fingers touched his forehead, almost hesitantly at first, and then closed around and tugged at a lock of hair, once.

He blinked his eyes open into darkness and laughed sleepily, because it was such an odd, awkward gesture. Momentarily, he felt sad he couldn’t see Sanzo’s face. Then again, he was probably only this affectionate because Goku couldn’t see him.

Goku sighed and pushed into the hand that was still holding onto his hair loosely.

“Sleep, monkey,” Sanzo said, in a voice that was barely audible, and Goku did.

He’d dreamed, the crows circling over the castle invading every one, more and more of them until they became a black suffocating mass, stinking of blood and death.

Goku woke gagging, feeling like there were feathers in the back of his throat.

Their tiny camp was undisturbed, the bedroll next to Goku’s in no more disarray than one would expect from sleeping, and yet.

Sanzo was gone.

‘He left without us, again,” was Goku’s first thought, his heart plummeting even as his hands turned into fists.

Then he spotted a single drop of blood on the empty bedroll, and his rising ire turned into ice.

He hadn’t left, he’d been taken, Goku knew with a sudden certainty, and it didn’t matter how he did.

Later, the three of them climbed up the steep mountainside, but when they got to the castle they found only dead youkai and a deceptively small figure standing in front of the shattered castle gates. He whirled around at Goku’s unthinking shout, ready to attack, and then there was a—

And here, it was as if Goku’s memories became a shattered mirror, showing pieces he couldn’t properly fit together.

He found out, later, that it was the moment when Gyokumen Kyushu ordered her pet scientist to take the last steps to bring back Gyumao, having gathered four of the five sutras and deciding it was good enough, with the Warrior Prince knocking at the door.

The last pulse of the minus wave, as Hakkai said, and maybe it was stronger than any before, or maybe there was something different about it altogether.

Goku only knew that the oddly familiar stranger fell on his knees, his eyes wide and staring at the grey sky, which he registered in the second before there was a pain like his head being split in two.

After that there were only disjointed pieces and the sense of glorious freedom, a sheer joy in destruction he almost but not quite recognized.

He’d become Seiten Taisei, he supposed, later. It was always like that. Except. Not quite.

Because there was also a flood of other memories, confusing the sage and distracting him from the bloodlust. Cherry blossoms and laughter and thin bony fingers in his hair, familiar and not. ‘Too soft,’ Goku thought, ‘no callouses from the gun.’

Blood, so much blood, and loneliness, crushing loneliness like the weight of a mountain.

Goku cried, and the sage snarled, claws sinking into his palms till they bled.

They’d bound him, and he would destroy them all.

Goku loved them, and they were taken from him, and he was alone. He was alone, for so long.

He would be free.

But he’d be alone.

The sage went quiet.

He remembered shocked eyes in a childish face, purple like a thundercloud but not the familiar shade, a trembling voice saying his name.

‘You’ll lose them again. We’ll lose him,’ a thought, the sage’s, or maybe Goku’s, or maybe it didn’t matter, and. ‘No.’

Fighting, glorious fighting, laughing as he fought an opponent that was big and strong and fast but not as strong as he was. Or as fast as the other, his friend, who Goku mostly saw as a flash of black and white from the corner of his eye. They worked well together, as if they’d been made for it, made to be fighting side by side.

He didn’t know who dealt the killing blow, maybe they both did.

He remembered standing across the room, the giant corpse between them, grinning, something like an answering smile in the grim face of the other.

‘Nataku, his name is Nataku,’ the memories whispered, teary and laughing.

The crow bastard was dead, but Sanzo was lying in a puddle of his own blood and there was an awful wet sound while he gasped for breath. Something was burning somewhere, someone was screaming, but it didn’t matter.

He came back to himself to the smell of Sanzo’s blood, seeming to soak the entire room. It very nearly did, and Goku wanted to look away and didn’t. It smelled of death, and he knew it was just the other corpses no one had had time to remove, but it made him twitchy regardless.

Goku’s senses were too sharp, he felt like he could smell and hear everything in the castle, hurried footsteps in the stairs two rooms over, the sound of falling stones, someone sobbing in the distance… smoke, and blood, and death.

Hakkai, his qi reflecting in an eerie glow on his pale, set face, and Goku couldn’t tell if the vines on his skin were actually moving or just appeared to in the light. His clawed hands were stained past the elbow, not just with Sanzo’s blood. Yaone at his side still had tear tracks on her face but she was focused on her work of helping Hakkai keep Sanzo alive, her face grim.

There was nothing Goku could do to help, and the sage was growling, until there were fingers around his arm, small but strong like steel.

He was briefly distracted because Nataku smelled strange, under the gore on him. Not like a human or youkai, and something about it turned Goku’s hackles, his instincts screaming at him that there was something fundamentally wrong about it. He ignored them.

Gojyo was sitting slumped against the wall, staring ahead with the blank stare of someone past exhaustion. He was pale too, blood in his hair and dripping slowly down his face and neck, and there was something very wrong with the arm he was clutching against his chest, the bones bent where they shouldn’t have been.

He frowned, and then got up slowly to stumble closer to the two healers engaged in their own fight.

“Tell me when to stop him,” he said, voice rough but even. Yaone glanced up from bloodied bandages and nodded grimly.

Goku took in a sharp breath and stood still, Nataku’s hand on his arm, and waited, his heart feeling like a stone in his chest.

He’d slept again, a seeming eternity later, on a wooden chair with a broken back, leaning on the cold plastered wall. His hand was on Sanzo’s wrist, one of the few parts of him that wasn’t covered in bandages. Goku could feel his pulse this way, still weak but steady now, and it was the only way he could sleep, though he kept startling awake every time someone passed by too close.

Hakkai and Gojyo were sleeping on the floor, on a mattress Gojyo had dragged in. Gojyo’s arm was wrapped up tight, set by Yaone after she and Hakkai had done all they could for Sanzo.

Hakkai would have collapsed on his patient earlier if Gojyo hadn’t held him back with his one good arm.

He slept now, looking nearly like a corpse himself, the bruises and small wounds standing out against greyish skin.

None of them had fared well in the battle, Goku thought as he woke the fifth time. Except him.

He looked down at a clawed hand, for the first time realizing he still looked like a youkai, but his thoughts were clear. His own.

Were they?

He looked for the bloodlust, like a man feeling after a lost tooth, and there was nothing more than sleepy confirmation that he liked the thought of a good battle, but not right now.

Right now, he was just tired and worried about his friends, especially Sanzo.

A shifting noise in the hallway, but Goku knew that was just their silent guard, staying outside in respect of Hakkai and Gojyo, who only knew him as an opponent and sudden last-minute ally.

“You can come in you know,” Goku said softly.

There were nearly silent steps on the stone tiles, and then the rustling of cloth, the sound of Nataku entering the room.

They were silent for a long while.

“What will you do?” Goku asked after a moment, and he heard rather than saw Nataku shrugging, his gaze settled on Sanzo’s still face.

“I think, perhaps, that I have some debts to repay,” Nataku said slowly, as if savouring the words. “And some cleaning up to do, back home,” he added, dark satisfaction in his voice.

“If that’s what you want to do, good,” he said, and Nataku laughed, humourlessly.

“I’ll do what needs to be done. But Goku?”

“Yes?”

“I think I will enjoy it,” he said it softly, and then went quiet. There was an expectation in it, like he was waiting for Goku to judge or absolve him.

Goku didn’t know much about revenge. He thought Sanzo might have had something profound and smart to say about it, if he felt like sharing. But he only knew loneliness.

“Then I hope you do, I suppose” he said instead, feeling like he was groping in the dark.

They’d been almost friends, once, a long time ago. It had happened to someone else, a Goku who didn’t know loss yet. Nataku had been his first, in that. He wondered if Nataku had ever known having something worth losing, really. If that had been their fledgling friendship.

“I hope you find something worth protecting, too,” Goku said quietly.

There was a rustle behind him, a hand settling on his shoulder. And then, hesitantly, Nataku leaned over him, his thin arms folded awkwardly over Goku’s chest, his hair tickling at his neck.

“Are we still friends?” he asked, a startlingly simple question.

Goku put a hand over Nataku’s arm, surprised once again how much smaller he was. He hadn’t grown. Could he even?

“Always,” he said.

It didn’t matter that they’d both been children, that they’d both forgotten and been formed into something else. He could still see the shape of it clear as glass, like a weed growing through cracks in stone, small and fragile but with deep roots.

“Then I have this, at least,” Nataku said, his cheek leaned momentarily against Goku’s before he stepped back, gone as if he’d never been there.

“I have to go soon,” he said, voice gone steely and dark again, focused on something far away.

Goku smiled, because it felt familiar. He turned, to memorise his friend. His oldest friend.

Nataku smiled back at him, startlingly gentle.

“Good luck,” Goku said, and Nataku nodded.

“You too. Take care of them,” He glanced at Sanzo, head tilting as he glanced between him and Goku.

“He’s so different,” he said, sounding like he was talking to himself more than Goku. “They all are.”

“What? Who?” Goku asked, and Nataku gave him a sideways glance, his mouth twisted into something that was neither a smile nor a frown.

“Can’t you tell? They returned to you. They even look alike, in these lives.”

He was going to deny it, but then he thought of Kenren’s grin and the rough way he’d ruffle his hair, the way he’d cared too much for everyone and been so bad at hiding it. Or those times Tenpou would try to explain some esoteric thing he was reading to Goku, distracted but patient, that rare soft smile of his. The way the two of them were like two halves of a coin. And Gojyo and Hakkai… they were different, except where they weren’t, not really.

And Konzen… his precious, exasperated sun.

Goku felt a wave of sorrow wash over him.

But he wouldn’t forget them again, not for anything.

He looked around at his friends, and did it even really matter if he’d known them in another life? They were just as irreplaceable now.

“I guess,” he said, for lack of anything better. “I changed too, and I didn’t even…”

“Die,” Nataku completed his sentence, and Goku shivered at the matter-of-fact tone. “You forgot. It’s not so different,” he added.

He would know, Goku supposed.

“I miss them,” he said, and Nataku laughed, the sound flat.

“They’re right here,” he said, almost chiding.

He didn’t get it, but Goku couldn’t really blame him.

“You could come with me,” Nataku said suddenly, those purple eyes drifting away from Goku’s and then back again, obviously gauging his reaction.

“I can’t leave them,” Goku said, realizing as he did he was sending his newfound friend into battle alone, against forces he knew little about. But he’d meant what he said. He glanced again at Sanzo, feeling torn between the need to help Nataku and ensure that flickering pulse didn’t stop.

Nataku sighed, a barely audible noise that Goku’s newly sharper hearing caught easily.

“I know,” he said, almost amused. “They’re your family.” And there was that deep vein of darkness again, a glimpse of a cold, deep well that left Goku shivering though he didn’t know why.

“I’ll come back later,” Nataku said, and Goku nodded, nothing else left to be said.

The first time Sanzo woke up, Hakkai was sleeping the sleep of a man still overusing his qi and Gojyo was away somewhere finding food.

So it was just Goku there to witness the pale lashes flutter, Sanzo’s eyes not quite focusing on him when Goku leaned over him, not daring to touch. He was bandaged from neck to waist, covering damage that Goku had seen only briefly, but which had been burned into his memory.

There had been so much blood, he thought, feeling cold. It’d been so close.

Punctured lung and severe blood loss, Hakkai had said, the first time he woke, still slurring from exhaustion. And Goku knew that was just the most immediate damage, the part that had almost killed him.

There was movement at the corner of his vision, and his gaze flickered over to Sanzo’s hand, the shape of it obscured by bandages.

Sanzo’s face twisted, probably at the pain of trying to move his damaged hand. His lips moved, though no sound came out, and then his eyes rolled up and he was gone again.

Goku sat there and breathed deep, combating a red haze that tried to descend over him.

What was the point of caring for something so fragile, came a bemused, irate thought that he didn’t recognize as his own. He growled.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hakkai twitch in his sleep, but he didn’t wake.

Goku closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyelids, pressing down until he saw red sparks form in the darkness.

What was the point of existing if he didn’t care, if he had nothing to lose, he thought furiously. The not-quite-foreign presence in his head went silent, almost thoughtful.

Several days later, Sanzo had woken a few more times, barely, and not very aware of his surroundings. That might have been in part due to the medicines Yaone was mixing for him, carefully dosed because she hadn’t had a human patient in years, she’d said.

He hadn’t seen the prince, except once in the distance as he was getting food from one of the kitchens with Yaone and happened to look through a window.

Kougaiji was sitting on a broken wall, framed by the stone spires wreathed in high rising fog.

He wasn’t wearing his coat, and his back was hunched, shoulder blades pushing through the tan skin of his back. He looked smaller than Goku remembered, against the wide-open landscape.

Lirin was there too, blond head leaning on Kougaiji’s shoulder, her arms wrapped loosely around his waist.

Yaone was watching them too, the deep sorrow on her face making her look older than usual.

“He’s lost so much,” she said.

Goku had heard about Gojyo’s brother not long ago, how he’d been fatally wounded during the attack on Sharak’s fortress. Goku hadn’t known him well, but it was still hard to believe he was gone. He’d seemed like a good guy the few times they met.

Gojyo hadn’t seemed surprised when Yaone had told them, but he’d only said he’d had a feeling and then pressed his lips into a narrow, unhappy line, not meeting any of their eyes.

Goku wasn’t sure if he’d even cried. Maybe he was waiting to be alone.

Kougaiji looked very lonely, even with Lirin there next to him.

“His mother too,” Yaone whispered, her gaze fixed on the prince. “He did everything to save her and yet…”

“She died too?” Goku asked, and Yaone nodded.

“The pillar holding her shattered when Gyumao woke. Gyokumen Kyushu, she was laughing. I wish I could have…” Yaone’s hands formed fists and fury warped her face as Goku looked on, making her nearly unrecognizable.

Then she took a deep breath and seemed to force herself to calm, before adding in a flat voice. “She was hit by a piece of stone when the roof fell.”

Yaone smiled sardonically.

“An inglorious end, which suited her at least.”

But that wasn’t exactly satisfying, Goku read from her pensive glance towards the hunched figure of Kougaiji.

“Goku,” Yaone said, her gaze trained on Kougaiji and her face still set in that grim flat look that kinda reminded Goku of how Hakkai got, sometimes. “That boy you fought Gyumao with…”

“Nataku?” Goku asked.

Yaone nodded, still not meeting his eyes.

“I think… from what Kougaiji said, he’s the one who—” she swallowed, and then continued almost at a whisper, “who killed Dokugakuji.”

Goku shook his head.

“No,” he denied, “He was controlled, and he didn’t remember before—He didn’t even know who he was! He tried to kill me too, and we’re—”

It occurred to him and none of this meant anything to Yaone, and his shoulders slumped, but she was finally looking towards him, mouth twisted in something that might have aspired to be a smile.

“Oh,” she said, and then her face crumpled and she breathed hard, fighting the tears that welled up in her eyes.

“Ok,” she said, muffled through the fingers she’d pressed to her mouth. “Ok, Goku. I just—Just don’t mention that he was here to him. To Kougaiji. He can’t…”

She broke off and turned away from him, letting out a single sob before going quiet except for her choppy breathing.

Goku wished there was something he could do, but he didn’t know Yaone well enough.

Poor Kougaiji, he thought, looking out the window.

“At least he has you and Lirin,” he said.

Yaone sighed.

“Yes, at least he has us,” she said softly, voice still thick with tears.

They shared the room for as long as they stayed at the Houtou Castle, despite the multiple empty rooms.

For a while, Sanzo wasn’t stable enough that Hakkai felt comfortable going too far. Besides, no one said it, but whether it was the memory of the battle or something less definable, they never got comfortable there.

To Goku it felt like there was a sustained note in the air, just on the edge of hearing, shrill and off. Except it wasn’t really a sound. He tried to explain it exactly once and got mocked by Gojyo, though Hakkai just hummed and looked thoughtful.

Either way, they stayed in the single small room without discussion.

One evening, at the point when Sanzo was getting well enough to be irritated he was still too sick to leave bed, Gojyo turned up with a bottle of something very alcoholic he’d found in a storeroom somewhere.

He and Hakkai drank most of it. Gojyo handed Goku a cup but the liquor smelled dreadful and tasted worse, so Goku wrinkled his nose and put it down.

Sanzo glared at the two others, probably irritated at Hakkai’s decree that he wasn’t well enough to drink yet.

Earlier that day, Goku had seen Hakkai frowning down at a thermometer before nonchalantly putting it away when he’d stepped into the room. Like he couldn’t tell at a glance that Sanzo was running a fever, with his glazed eyes and the altered smell of the medicines.

He’d have to have a talk with them soon, especially Hakkai. Sure, he got that they were nervous about the no-limiter thing, but he felt fine. And he didn’t want Hakkai hiding stuff from him about Sanzo. When had he ever needed that?

Currently, Gojyo slumped back on the mattress he and Hakkai were sharing, the cup in his hand sloshing dangerously but barely retaining its contents.

“So much for the hand of Buddha closing in on us or whatever that baby-hag said,” he said, not exactly slurring but with a certain looseness to the words.

Hakkai giggled, the noise still as incongruous from him as the first time Goku had heard it years ago.

“Can you believe it’s over?” Gojyo continued, “Feels like we’ve been travelling for twenty years, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not over,” Sanzo muttered, one hand making an aborted movement towards a robe sleeve he wasn’t wearing, before his brow furrowed in further irritation. His voice was still rough like he’d been swallowing broken glass.

Then he slumped against the piled pillows on the bed with a harried sigh. The usually fine lines on his face looked deep in the candlelight, his skin pale under the flush of fever.

Gojyo grimaced at him from behind his cup.

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” he replied. “Sorry for being glad we all somehow managed to survive.”

“Too bad,” Sanzo replied flatly, but he almost sounded distracted, and he didn’t say much more as Gojyo and Hakkai continued to drink until Gojyo slowly keeled over into the bed, sideways with his legs spilling onto the stone floor.

Hakkai giggled some more and then manhandled him around and tucked him into bed, smoothing the bedding over Gojyo’s chest while he snored loudly and Hakkai perused him like, Goku imagined, a mother might behold a sleeping baby.

Then he frowned, slowly and looking bemused, before pulling the sheet off so he could get into bed too, sighing contentedly as he snuggled up to Gojyo, who shifted a bit and then turned to flop and arm over Hakkai.

Goku snickered and then glanced at Sanzo.

His eyes were still glazed from fever where he half-sat against the pillows, head turned towards Hakkai and Gojyo. And this was the startling thing: He was smiling, a soft expression that almost made him look like someone unfamiliar.

Goku swallowed hard and looked away before Sanzo noticed him staring.

There was a curious thing which Goku noticed as Sanzo slowly regained enough strength to leave his bed and started to make short trips around the castle.

He couldn’t tell, initially, if it was just his senses, which seemed to fluctuate from better than before to so good it was disorienting, but it seemed he could always find Sanzo, now.

It might have been the sutras, which, Goku had realized, had an odd resonation he could just about make out on the edge of his perception if he looked for it.

But he was pretty sure it was Sanzo himself. If he wanted to find him, he only had to look for a sense of… something, and he knew which way to go. It reminded him of something that Hakkai had read to him from a biology textbook long ago, about how some animals could always find back to where they were born, by some mysterious means the book hadn’t really explained.

He hadn’t told anyone yet, about that or the weird thoughts he had sometimes. They were under control, and they’d only worry, probably.

This time, he was looking for Sanzo because he’d been away for a while and Goku wouldn’t put it past him to overextend himself and be unable to return on his own power. It had happened before.

He found him on a balcony overlooking the bleak valley around the castle. Sanzo was sat on a stone bench, propped up in a corner. His body was held stiff and his brow was furrowed. He was probably in pain, Goku thought, irritated.

“You shouldn’t be sitting here alone,” he said, sharper than he’d intended, standing in the doorway. “One of the youkai still here might carry a grudge.”

Sanzo whirled around, looking startled, and then his face twisted briefly like the movement had hurt, before he hid the wince under irritation of his own.

“I know that. Kougaiji was here until just now,” Sanzo snapped.

Fair enough, Kougaiji had said they were under his protection, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to Sanzo if he was there.

Sanzo was wearing an unfamiliar padded jacket Yaone had borrowed them. It was too large on him, black and embroidered with red thread, and it made him look washed out and tired. Which he probably was.

Goku immediately felt bad for arguing with him.

“Goku, come here,” Sanzo told him after a quiet moment, and Goku stepped forward to sit on the bench next to him.

“What?” he asked.

Without hesitation, Sanzo suddenly slapped a hand on his forehead, a familiar glow of light nearly blinding Goku before he had time to react.

He winced in expectation of the awful pressure that seemed to burn right thought his skull… except, he never remembered this part did h—

There was a sense of the pressure tightening, but before it could fully close, it seemed to hold back, right before there was a sense of something snapping, like a rubber band extended too far.

Goku blinked as someone gasped as in pain, and then the light faded too, leaving dark spots dancing in his eyes.

“Sanzo?” he asked, but he could only hear harsh breathing.

As the dark spots faded, Sanzo was clutching his bandaged hand with the other, staring at it with wide eyes.

What had just happened?

Oh.

“You tried to put the limiter on me?” Goku asked, perturbed. “Why? I’m not…”

Sanzo shook his head sharply and interrupted him. There was sweat beading on his forehead, and he was sagging forward slightly.

“I needed to know if I could,” he said harshly, like there was gravel in his throat.

An awkward silence descended on them. Goku wanted to protest he didn’t need it, and then wondered if the abject dislike of the idea was all his. Or if it mattered?

“I’m not gonna hurt anyone,” he argued anyway. “And you’re still sick,” he added, even knowing Sanzo wouldn’t appreciate the reminder.

Looking over at him, Goku could tell he was definitely in pain now, hunched over around his middle and breathing with difficulty.

“You need to see Hakkai,” Goku told him, frustration colouring his voice.

He stood up, not looking at Sanzo, and held out an arm to him abruptly.

“Come on,” he said.

After nothing happened, he looked over at Sanzo. He was smiling at him, in that dry crooked way he did sometimes.

Then he gave an unimpressed look at the arm thrust in front of him, before grasping it and using it to lever himself upright, moving like a much older man.

They made slow progress back to the room, Goku holding up an increasing amount of Sanzo’s weight, but by unspoken agreement neither of them commented on it.

The dragons in front of the castle were bigger than the ones Goku had seen Kougaiji’s group use before.

Hakkai was standing on the castle steps, Jeep curled in a disgruntled necklace around his shoulders while Hakkai tried to appease him. He didn’t like the idea of them riding other dragons back home, and had been sulky since they’d first been presented.

Or maybe it’d been the way the bigger dragons had first crowded around him and Hakkai, startling Jeep into flight as the big heads tried to get close to him, peering at him with wide-eyed curiosity and puffing air out of their nostrils while Jeep made alarmed shrill noises and flapped his wings.

Goku got the feeling he’d found the experience deeply embarrassing afterwards, judging by the way he’d hid under the covers in Hakkai and Gojyo’s bed and hissed at anyone who approached.

Either way, they were now preparing the big dragons for travel, large basket like seats rigged over their backs, for carrying supplies and riders. Apparently, it was for more comfortable long-distance travel.

“Or invalids,” Lirin whispered in Goku’s ear while Sanzo wasn’t listening.

“They’ll know the way home when they’re no longer needed,” Kougaiji explained after instruction in dragon riding. Goku had already done some practicing with Lirin, the few times she wasn’t at her brother’s side. Even Lirin was subdued, and Goku could begin to see how she might be when she was older. She was already different from the loud brat he’d first met years ago.

He’d noticed they didn’t like to leave Kougaiji alone, her and Yaone, and seeing at the hollow look of him he understood why.

As the others did the last preparations for travel, he and Lirin were checking the dragons, Lirin showing him what to look out for.

“Sometimes they get these nasty parasites under the scales… but I suppose you’ll only have them for a week or so.”

She scratched the dragon on the thinner skin under the jaw, and it made a low rumbling noise.

“That’s a good girl,” she mumbled.

She glanced at where Kougaiji and Sanzo were standing some way away from the others. Sanzo was leaning on a building and looking irritated, but he did seem to listen to whatever Kougaiji was saying.

“They’ve been talking,” Lirin said quietly. “Have you noticed?”

Goku had.

“Yeah,” he agreed cautiously. He’d caught some of it, by accident, and hadn’t stayed to listen. Kougaiji had been talking in a low voice, and there had been such raw emotion there… he wondered what Sanzo had told him. He wasn’t exactly good and consoling someone.

Maybe he’d just listened.

Lirin was still giving him an expectant look, so he said:

“I didn’t listen to them but… I don’t know, do you think it helped?”

Lirin gave her brother an evaluating glance.

“Dunno,” she said, “maybe.”

“He’ll be ok, eventually,” Goku told her, hoping it was true.

Lirin grinned, a bit of her old self shining through.

“Yeah!” she exclaimed. She poked at a stone embedded in the dirt.

“After his mom… you know. It was scary. I wasn’t feeling so good so I–,” she blanched, halting.

Goku didn’t know the details, but he knew Gyokumen Kyushu and that scientist had done something to Lirin, had been using her as part of the experiment. He’d noticed she’d been wearing long sleeves and trousers since then.

“You helped him though, didn’t you? Yaone said that didn’t she?” Goku said.

He’d not really been listening, because Sanzo had only just stopped drowning on his own blood and Gojyo had been cursing at Hakkai for almost killing himself to achieve that, but he remembered the sound of Lirin crying and Yaone telling her she’d done a good job and everything was going to be fine.

Lirin gave him a shaky smile.

“Yeah, she did,” she agreed.

“He said he’d burn this place, after you leave…” she added, biting her lip as she glanced at the castle towering over them.

“Oh?” Goku asked.

“I think I’ll be glad.” Lirin said.

Chapter 2:

Riding on a flying dragon the trip took a ridiculously short time. It was pretty exiting too, Goku thought, though Sanzo didn’t agree with him initially.

He’d strongly protested accepting the ride, but then Hakkai had pointed out they didn’t have a working credit card anymore, and Sanzo had gone grudgingly quiet.

He slept for a large part of the journey, curled over a pile of supplies, and was still exhausted and crabby whenever he was awake.

“His lungs were in bad shape, and there was only so much we could do,” Hakkai told Goku while they were filling up their water and letting the dragons drink on their second day of travel.

Sanzo had been coughing a lot that day, and there was a rasp to his breathing that Goku didn’t like the sound of.

“They’ll probably never be quite as good as before,” Hakkai admitted. “He should really stop smoking for good, but…” he sighed, and Goku winced.

That didn’t seem likely to happen.

One and a half weeks later, they were back at the Kei’un monastery in Chang’an.

Their arrival caused a big hubbub, and the monks tried to throw up some kind of festival to honour their mission and got glared down by Sanzo.

Of course, that didn’t stop people showing up and wanting to talk to him about how amazing he was or whine about how they were still scared about youkai and various other things.

Hakkai told most of them politely but firmly that Sanzo was still recovering and couldn’t receive visitors. Goku wished it wasn’t so close to the truth.

It should have been nice being home, except maybe they’d been gone too long. Gojyo had been right, felt like a lot longer that it had been.

And Chang’an was different too. Quieter, somehow. When they went to the market, there were less stalls than Goku recalled, and he noticed a lot of the houses along the way had heavy doors and window shutters. And the city had a wall now, with guards at the gate.

He saw someone he knew and greeted her, and she went pale and flinched violently, before blinking at him in confusion.

“Goku?” she said, disbelievingly.

Even after he explained the lack of limiter, the discussion ended awkwardly. She waved at him and told him to visit the bakery and say hello, but Goku could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

Gojyo threw an arm over his shoulder after she had walked away.

“Hey, why don’t we go see if Old Ling is still in business and makes those dumplings,” he said.

Goku appreciated it, really.

Hakkai and Gojyo were staying at the monastery, because when they went to check their old house it had collapsed. Besides, though he didn’t say it outright, Goku knew Hakkai wanted to keep an eye on Sanzo in case he got worse suddenly.

So they stayed, on the pretence of looking for a new place. Which shouldn’t have been difficult, what with all the empty places in town, but neither of them seemed to be looking that hard.

Even the monastery seemed to have found ways to function without Sanzo, insofar as he’d ever done much of the detail work of running it.

The four of them were rather like extra cogs thrown into an already working machinery, bouncing about and getting in the way more often than not.

Goku wondered if Sanzo was feeling that too.

It might have been just him being ill, or suffering from cutting back on cigarettes, but even on the days when he wasn’t coughing a lot, Sanzo just seemed like there was something missing.

Sometimes he paced like a caged animal, snarling at anyone who crossed him path. Other times, he lay in bed staring at the wall, one hand resting on the rolled-up sutra in his lap.

They’d left the two extras with Sharak on the way home, Sanzo gruffly telling her to figure it out, but he’d kept his own and the Seiten. The one he’d been looking for since before Goku knew him.

On the quiet days, Goku tried to talk to him, and got distracted nods and hums in reply. Then he was intentionally annoying, but half the time Sanzo just told him to shut up and turned his back on him, and then Goku just felt bad.

One morning, he stepped into Sanzo’s office and found him reading a letter while Hakkai sat at the small table at the side and pretended to read a book while actually observing Sanzo.

Sanzo got a lot of letters, but most of them ended up burned after being vetted by Hakkai and then dismissed.

Goku got a feeling that even Hakkai mostly read them because he was bored.

For the first time in a while, Sanzo seemed fully awake as he scanned the letter.

“What’s that?” Goku asked.

“It’s from someone my master used to know,” Sanzo told him distractedly.

Gojyo leaned in through the doorway.

“Hakkai said you got a letter, anything interesting?” he asked, and Sanzo grunted in reply.

He put the letter down, and gave Goku and Gojyo a supercilious look-over. It almost felt like old times.

Even more so when he shook out a cigarette, ignoring the narrowing of Hakkai’s eyes as he lighted it.

“It’s an invitation,” Sanzo said, punctuating with a first drag of the cigarette.

“Uhuh,” Gojyo said. “And are we going?”

“We are,” Sanzo replied, continuing to smoke with relish.

“Where to?” Hakkai asked.

“Mount Huaguo in Jiangsu,” Sanzo, said, prompting a silence, into which Hakkai spoke, sounding pinched:

“That’s over 1000 kilometres away, Sanzo.”

“So?” Sanzo asked, giving him that same supercilious look.

“We’ve been here for just a few months, after several years of travel…”

“So?” Sanzo repeated, with a mean grin.

“So you can’t just order Hakkai to drive you that far on a whim, you shit-monk,” Gojyo argued, earning an evil eye his way.

“What, because the lot of you are so busy smooching off the hospitality here, right?” Sanzo hissed venomously, and then was interrupted by a coughing fit, almost crushing the still burning cigarette.

“Actually, I don’t care what you bastards do, I can walk,” he rasped out.

“Yeah right,” Gojyo muttered, and then glanced at Hakkai. Hakkai shook his head, but Goku saw he was smiling behind the hand he’s raised to his face.

At least Sanzo was still himself?

“I do wonder what the Three Aspects will think about it,” Hakkai thought aloud.

Sanzo snorted.

“Like I give a shit,” he muttered.

“I hate to agree with Cherry here, but yeah. Those chuckleheads fired us once already and we still did their dirty work, least they can do is cut us some slack now,” Gojyo said, ignoring the way Sanzo glared at him over the old nickname.

They left about a week later, setting off before sunrise and without informing anyone of their plans, besides leaving a note in Sanzo’s room.

Gojyo said he wished he could have been there to see the stuffy monks’ faces when they read it, and Goku could only agree.

There was familiarity in travelling, and at least this time there was little risk of being attacked by youkai.

Even with the minus wave gone, the effects of it were not. They passed more abandoned buildings and even villages than Goku could count. Many of the villages they did see were fortified in some manner or other. When they met people on the road, a lot of them gave them wary, suspicious looks.

Goku took to wearing a bandanna after a few meetings that ended in outright violence the moment his ears were noticed, though he couldn’t do much about the claws.

Once, they passed a macabre arrangement of several dead youkai, hanging from gallows right next to the road, the bodies mutilated either before or after death.

Goku could still smell the rotting bodies for almost a kilometre after, and there was an unpleasant silence hanging over the car for far longer than that.

By silent agreement, they stayed away from any settlements, and Goku stayed behind whenever they needed more supplies.

One such time, he was mournfully wondering if he was ever going to be able to visit a restaurant again, while Sanzo dozed under the shadow of a tree.

The travelling was hard on him, physically, but he seemed in a somewhat better mood than before, at least that day.

After Goku sighed for the third time, Sanzo snorted under the shade of the sedge hat he’d positioned against a tree behind him.

“Shut up,” he muttered, but there wasn’t much bite to it.

Taking it as invitation, Goku edged closer. Maybe it wasn’t too bad, getting to just relax for a bit. Daringly, he laid down on the grass next to Sanzo, almost close enough to touch.

It was late autumn, the nights already cold, but most days were warm as long as the sun was out, like now. The grass they were lying on was dry and just a shade darker than Sanzo’s hair when Goku glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

Goku listened to the sound of him breathing, the slight rasp of it familiar by now. Hakkai had said he might never quite recover. Goku tried to not think about that.

Sanzo was tough. He’d survived so many things before, he couldn’t just… not do that now, after everything. Maybe the strange behaviour Goku had noticed was just because he was finally at peace now?

Maybe he didn’t seem like he was really happy, but that might just be how Sanzo was.

Goku didn’t like to think that Sanzo was simply incapable of being happy, but at anyone could be at least content, right?

He sighed again, but Sanzo didn’t comment on it, and when Goku looked over he’d fallen asleep, face slack in a way that made him look strange. Younger.

Goku moved his hand the last few inches to touch Sanzo’s. His fingers were cooler than Goku’s, and they twitched slightly at the touch, curling around his. He frowned, and Goku held his breath, only letting it go when Sanzo’s brows smoothed out again.

His heart felt heavy with tenderness, and he grinned ruefully.

“You’re still trying to carry it all on your own, aren’t ya?” Goku muttered, and Sanzo made a noise in his sleep, his brow furrowing again.

“Yes yes, shutting up right away,” Goku said, chuckling.

On the third day of travelling, Goku spotted a pillar of smoke in the distance.

He could smell it too, a mixture of burning wood and the less pleasant smell of charred flesh, a smell Goku wished he didn’t recognize.

“Hakkai, I think someone’s died,” he said, and could see the tension in the way the other man was clutching the wheel.

“The question is if we are to get involved or not,” Hakkai said, and they all looked towards Sanzo from old habit.

Who was, unlike usual, hesitating, a frown on his face like he was trying to discern something in the distance, not that there was anything to see but the road and the pillar of smoke off to the side.

“You’ve already decided anyway,” he said at last, sounding frustrated.

There was a nearly overgrown road that Jeep luckily managed to drive through, and then the forest opened out to a grassy hill, with a settlement of few houses built downhill.

Most of the buildings were on fire, and there were a few corpses scattered around them, and no movement they could see, apart from some clothes flapping on the clothesline off to the side.

Other than the crackling of the flames and Gojyo cursing under his breath it was eerily silent.

They got out, and the first corpse they found was a young man with sandy brown hair and several arrows protruding from his chest. His face was frozen in a snarl. He was also clearly a youkai, as were all the other dead bodies they found.

“A lot of them were just kids, why…”

Gojyo’s voice was rough, probably not just from the smoke he’d inhaled checking the burning buildings for survivors. They hadn’t found any.

Gojyo rubbed at his arm and winced, looking quizzically at a mild burn on his forearm as if he couldn’t imagine where it came from.

“Gojyo, let me look at that,” Hakkai said.

He had been quiet for a while, his expression too still since they first saw the smoke.

Goku sighed. They’d been too late to even confront the attackers. The only sign that the villagers hadn’t gone down with a fight were a few pools of non-youkai blood, but there were no human bodies left. Assuming some of them died as Goku suspected, they must have been carried away.

He looked away from Hakkai and Gojyo, standing close together as Hakkai healed the insignificant burn and Gojyo protested half-heartedly that it would heal on his own. They both probably needed it, Goku supposed.

“Where’s Sanzo?” Hakkai asked suddenly, voice tense, and Goku started.

When had he last seen him? He’d been so focused on checking the houses, but had Sanzo even followed them down the hill? Goku couldn’t recall seeing him.

What if there were survivors, confused and angry at any human they saw… Goku closed his eyes, holding back on the panic as best he could, and just feeling for the sense of Sanzo that he’d found he had now.

He wasn’t far away, Goku’s inner radar told him, and he took off in that direction, ignoring the way Gojyo called after him to wait. There was still the possibility that Sanzo had found trouble, and Goku wasn’t taking any risks.

He crashed through the underbrush in the forest surrounding the village, barely noting the branches that whipped against his skin, until he found a path leading in the right direction and was able to run faster. He was running downhill now, and on one side he could see water through the trees, probably a lake.

He was able to smell the blood first, sharp tang of it in his nostrils, but it was youkai, not human. Definitely not Sanzo’s, which Goku would have known immediately.

Just moments later he saw the corpse of a youkai woman, lying on her stomach on the shore, her blood soaking into the sand of the tiny beach. The youkai had probably been coming here to get water and wash, since it wasn’t too far from the village.

There was a splashing sound, and Goku looked up from the woman to see Sanzo wading in the water. He stumbled, already waist deep, and Goku didn’t hesitate before going after him.

“Oy, Sanzo!” he called, and the man started, stumbling again so that his sleeves sunk deeper into the lake water.

Goku figured why he was having trouble soon, as he stepped on the slippery stones that covered the river bottom just a few metres from the sandy shore. It was easier for him, with his feet calloused from years of walking barefoot, and the claws helped too, but he still stumbled a few times.

“What are you doing?” he called out, splashing towards Sanzo. The water was cold this early in the spring, and Sanzo’s health hadn’t been the best since the injuries he took in the battle. He shouldn’t be here.

Sanzo didn’t reply right away, frowning. Then he pointed towards something further on the water.

Goku had to shade his eyes of the sunlight reflecting off the surface, but if he squinted he thought he could see an object bobbing on the nearly still water, quite far out on the lake.

“What’s that, a basket?” he asked, looking at Sanzo in confusion.

“Yes,” he said, gaze fastened on the floating basket, with a strange expression on his face. Goku thought he knew Sanzo well, better than most people, but sometimes he was still a mystery.

Well, he knew what he could do, at least.

“I’ll get it for you then!” he said, and then, when Sanzo didn’t move “go back to the shore.”

He held his breath, but Sanzo just gave him a cool look, crossing his arms. He might even do it, if Goku didn’t push him, and Goku wished briefly he could just pick the frustrating man up and carry him off to the shore to dry up.

But Sanzo would never forgive him, so he just sighed and slid into the water to swim towards the floating basket.

“Goku!” Sanzo called, and he turned, already far enough his feet didn’t touch the bottom. “Careful with it,” Sanzo told him cryptically, and Goku nodded.

Why a basket? He wondered while swimming smoothly through the cool water, not so bad now that he was used to it. Did they youkai woman set it out on the water before she was killed? In that case it must have been something important… oh.

He reaches the floating basket, the shore far behind him by then. Even before he reached it, he could smell the contents, a soft-pungent scent of sour milk and skin. He could also hear a faint wheezing of sleeping breath.

Goku swam closer, careful not to disturb the water too much, but the basket still bobbed slightly on the waves his movements created. It was deep and tightly woven, with handles on each side and a larger one in an arc over the top. He turned it in the water, just enough to see inside while using his feet to keep afloat.

The youkai baby in the basket was sleeping. It was startlingly tiny, with a round puffy face and some wisps of pale silvery hair on its head. One tiny fist peeked out from under the blankets it was wrapped in. As Goku turned the basket, the tiny face crinkled, and then the baby opened its eyes, pale green and serene.

He expected it to cry, but it didn’t, just smacked its lips and then yawned, before seeming to fall asleep once more.

Goku glanced towards the shore, where Sanzo standing next to the corpse of, probably, the baby’s mother. How did he know they’d be here?

He shrugged mentally, leaving the question for later scrutiny. For now he’d focus on getting the basket to shore, hopefully without being subjected to screaming. It would be slow going, swimming with just one hand.

Later, Goku and Sanzo had trekked back to the village and Hakkai had inspected the baby and declared it a girl who was probably less than a year old, though he didn’t state that with much confidence. Then, a tense silence had descended over the group.

Sanzo was smoking a cigarette and looking cold in his still wet clothes, and Goku caught Hakkai giving him concerned looks but not saying anything. He knew Hakkai had been giving Sanzo serious talks about how his lungs couldn’t take the extra stress anymore. He also knew Sanzo had been smoking less, but less for him was far from nothing.

It worried him, but the only person who could make Sanzo stop smoking was himself and there was no saying he would. And it wasn’t happening at the moment, that was certain.

Gojyo was hanging over the basket, peering into it like he’d never seen a baby before, while both Hakkai and Sanzo were giving it conspicuous space.

“It’ll probably get hungry soon,” Gojyo said, “Not an expert on babies or anything but they do that a lot, right? And it must have been a few hours since… you know.”

“Yes, no doubt,” Hakkai agreed, voice just slightly strained.

“Great,” Sanzo muttered under his breath between drags at his cigarette, and then coughed, dry and hacking.

The baby woke as Jeep’s motor started and began to cry, a piercing sound that made no one’s mood better. She swung her tiny fists in distress, her face growing nearly purple and furrowing until it looked like a pickled plum. Goku picked her up and tried his best at soothing her but it had no effect.

“Uh, I think you’re supposed to hold up the head or something?” Gojyo told him, and then muttered something about exes with babies.

Listening to those cries made Goku’s stomach pinch with sympathetic hunger. Briefly, absurdly, he imagined complaining about it. Sanzo would probably shoot him on the spot, Goku thought, looking at his hunched, livewire-tense back.

They drove on, the silence only broken by the sound of Jeep’s motor and the baby’s crying, sporadic by now. She was drooping, and that worried Goku too, even as he was glad of the lessening volume of the crying. How long could a person that small go without eating? They’d given her water earlier but had nothing a baby could eat with them.

No one said anything, but they were all tense and ready to be attacked until they were well away from the village. Even the baby went quiet after a while, eyes wide and alert as of sensing the mood in the car. It was only when Gojyo groaned and slumped in the seat when she started and began to cry weakly again.

“Shit,” Gojyo mumbled, “not again. Nearest village we get, we have to find some baby-food or something. What do babies eat, Hakkai?”

Hakkai laughed, high and slightly deranged.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Gojyo,” he said.

“Guess we’ll just ask,” Goku said, slumping in his seat himself. His head was starting to hurt, and he was miserably hungry. He almost envied the baby, he wanted to start screaming too.

Hopefully youkai babies could eat human baby food, since that was probably all they’d find, he thought. The baby let another piercing cry, and Goku rocked her with a deep sigh.

“I know you’re hungry Huamei, I’m hungry too,” he muttered.

Gojyo raised an eyebrow at him.

“Huamei? Like a dried plum?” he asked incredulously.

“Huh? Yeah, I guess? She looks a bit like one, doesn’t she?”

Gojyo gave the baby a long look before letting out a bark of laughter and shaking his head.

“Yeah maybe but you can’t call a girl that…”

“Could. Everyone shut up. Right. Now.”

Sanzo didn’t scream or take out his gun or anything, and their chatter was cut as if with a knife. The baby went quiet too, like it had before when it had sensed they were in danger.

Goku wondered if human babies did that or if it was a youkai thing. Or just this one. He’d never spent much time with babies.

Gojyo motioned at Sanzo with his head and mouthed ‘losing it’ his eyebrows adding a question mark. Goku just shook his head, sincerely hoping that wasn’t the case.

It had been a long day, and it wasn’t nearly over yet.

For one, they hadn’t yet discovered the problem with diapers, which was an all-around traumatic experience.

They got some rather strange looks at the restaurant yesterday, more so even than usual. Goku supposed that a Sanzo priest, three guys and a baby was still quite an odd sight, even with the baby’s long ears covered by an oversized beanie. Especially when they were arguing about how to feed said baby something called formula that looked rather like thick milk or thin gruel.

One of the waitresses, a young woman with hair cut very short, kept glancing their way, moving about like nervous bird, before she came over, leaning over the baby.

“There’s… if you need help warming the food, I can do it at the back,” she said, speaking a bit too quickly, one hand tugging at the long sleeve of her black dress. She hesitated, her gaze jumping between them, before settling on Goku, who was holding Huamei.

“Just, please follow me,” she said, her smile not reaching her eyes.

She led Goku and Huamei to a tiny staffroom in the back, where she showed him how to mix up and warm the formula. She said her name was Jiao.

Jiao glanced around furtively, before pushing up one sleeve of her shirt to show a bracelet that sat snugly against the skin of her wrist.

“A monk made it for me,” she said quietly. “After… after. He came from the mountain.”

“Oh,” Goku said, and Jiao looked at him briefly, nervously, before her gaze flitted away again.

“Is she yours” she asked hesitantly, nodding towards Huamei.

“No, we found her at a settlement not too far from here, they’d been attacked,” Goku explained awkwardly, and Jiao’s face went shuttered.

“I… knew about them. They were living so openly, everyone was talking about it.”

“Do you know if any of those people has any family left around here?” Goku asked, but Jiao shook her head.

“No, they came from further east,” she said. “I could have told them it was too soon,” she added quietly, before glancing at Goku.

Jiao laughed, bitterly. “I’m taking a risk even talking to you, but that baby… what are you going to do with her? Find someone to take her in in the town near the monastery? I know there are more of us there, mostly hiding. Safer too, the monks at least try to speak on our behalf…”

He was wearing the bandana and gloves Hakkai had handed him before they’d driven into the city they’d found on the map. But he supposed a youkai would know, just from his scent, if nothing else.

She was fiddling with the limiter on her wrist, the tips of her fingers going to the place where her cuff hid it, again and again.

Jiao bit her lip, staring down at the formula in the small pot.

“This will do in a pinch, but it won’t be good for her in the long run,” she muttered, and Goku wasn’t sure she was even talking to him anymore.

Huamei had fallen asleep after eating, out like a light. She must have been exhausted, Goku had supposed.

Sanzo looked tired too, but he told them to get moving after they’d eaten, not waiting for the rest of them to get up before striding out.

He was smoking again when they caught up to him, leaning heavily on Jeep, and ignored the pinched look Hakkai threw at him.

“We have to go back and bury them,” he said.

“Yeah, I bet we’ll see your highness with a shovel,” Gojyo quipped, but it was obviously out of habit.

Sanzo was in no shape to dig graves and they all knew it.

They were all quiet on the ride back, tense again as they approached the village. There was less smoke now, but the fires weren’t totally out yet.

When they got there, Goku vaulted out of the car and then hesitated, looking back at the basket with the sleeping baby, then at Sanzo who was indeed settling back in his seat for the long run.

It seemed somehow wrong, leaving a baby with Sanzo. What if she began to cry? Could he deal with a crying baby? He didn’t even like older kids, let alone babies. But they didn’t have much of a choice, did they?

He left with another apprehensive look back, before shaking his head.

Burying the youkai villagers was grim work. Goku tried to focus on the movements. The dug a large hole at first, and then carried the bodies on a piece of tarpaulin they’d found in a shed.

A lot of them weren’t that big, and he especially tried not to think of that.

Seeing the details of everyday life scattered all around was almost worse than the bodies themselves. The toy horse in the middle of the yard. The fat cucumbers and pumpkins in the vegetable patch that no one was left to harvest.

Huamei could have been one of the dead, easily, he thought as he and Hakkai were carrying her probable mother from the shore. She had the same eyes, and fair hair like Huamei had. He wondered what she had called her daughter. There was no one to ask.

When they were done with the graves, Sanzo walked down the hill, carrying Huamei, who was awake and alert again, her eyes wide and almost scared. She was clutching at one of the sutras, tiny fist crinkling the cloth.

That was strange too, Sanzo letting someone touch them, Goku thought. But Huamei wouldn’t know, would she, being a baby.

The sun was setting, the last rosy rays of it still touching the hill, but where they had dug the grave there was only shadow, and a rising wind left Goku feeling chilled.

Sanzo looked distant as he read the prayers for the dead, a grey figure in the falling dusk, with little more colour or animation than the youkai they’d just finished covering up under a layer of dirt.

Goku himself felt exhausted in a way he couldn’t recall being after a long day of fighting on the journey. Looking at Hakkai and Gojyo, he reckoned they all were ready to crash, but no one suggested staying there after Sanzo was done.

Even if it wasn’t for the risk of the human attackers returning, he didn’t think any of them would have wanted to sleep there.

By the time they got back to the city and got rooms at an inn there, Goku was ready to collapse. He put the basket down on the floor and fell on the bed, thinking he’d get up in a moment to strip out of his clothes that still stank of smoke.

They were on the journey, being attacked by youkai as usual. Goku jumped out of the car, nyoibou in hand and crashing into the skull of a youkai with a wet crack.

He grinned, happy to be able to move after the hours spent cooped up in the car.

There was someone behind him and he ducked, the air whistling as something brushed past where his head had been, and then Goku swung around to strike at the attacker.

She went down limply, neck at an angle no living person’s could be, eyes staring glassily up at the sky and mouth slightly open.

It was Huamei’s mother.

He woke up abruptly, breathing hard. He could still smell the smoke from yesterday because he hadn’t taken off his clothes, and now the bedclothes smelled of it too. Gross.

Over the stink of smoke, he knew right away that Sanzo was in the room, smelling of cigarettes but not smoking one at the moment.

Goku opened one eye, and saw the back of Sanzo’s head where he was sitting on the floor, back against the side of Goku’s bed. He was leaning forward so that Goku could clearly see the back of his neck even under the long wisps of blond hair that covered it.

There was a faint scar right over the bony ridges of his vertebrae above the two sutras resting on his shoulders. It bothered Goku a little that he couldn’t place when that exact injury had happened. But then Sanzo did have a lot of scars, and not all from after they’d met.

When he raised his head from the pillow just a little, he could see that Sanzo was looking down at Huamei, his brow furrowed with some unnameable feeling.

Huamei was squinting up at him. Or maybe she was looking at the end of one of the sutras hanging above her, because suddenly one of her tiny hands struck out and grasped it firmly. She immediately made to pull the cloth towards her mouth.

Sanzo huffed out a breath and tugged the sutra away, leaving Huamei staring in confusion at her empty fist before her face crumpled threateningly.

“Don’t you dare,” Sanzo said sharply, and Huamei sniffled a few times but then sighed as if greatly put upon and settled. Her hands curled around the edge of her blanket and pulled it up to her mouth to chew on instead.

“Morning, Sanzo,” Goku yawned, half sitting up in bed.

Sanzo didn’t reply, which was usual for him.

It was nice, having him this close in the morning while they had nothing urgent to do and he wasn’t in a bad mood.

Idly, Goku wished he could touch too, stroke a hand through that blond hair that he knew was fine and soft to the touch, unlike his own hair. He thought about the scar and how it would feel to put his lips to it, and then deliberately thought about something else. Anything else.

Changing diapers? Ok that worked only too well, Goku thought and wrinkled his nose before slumping back onto the bed.

Sanzo leaned further against the bed, his arms folding over his knees. He coughed, and Goku tensed but it didn’t turn into a fit this time.

He was looking kind of grey anyway, the shadows under his eyes harsh and purple, his cheekbones standing out too sharply.

Goku looked away, swallowing. He didn’t really want to think about that. Even thinking about the events yesterday was less depressing.

“Do you think it’ll get any better, with time?” he asked.

“Hardly,” Sanzo replied. “The youkai are being quiet now, perhaps, but they’ll start fighting back soon enough, and it’ll just give humans more excuses to attack them.”

“So you think it’ll be like Gojyo said, the last one standing will be a human?”

Sanzo’s hands twitched where they rested on his raised knees, and he made an irritated sound.

“Probably,” he said before getting up, one hand briefly pressing down the mattress next to Goku, nearly touching him.

The little finger and most of the ring finger was gone, but the remaining ones were familiar, with the blunt nails and nicotine stained tips.

Goku wanted to grasp that hand and ask Sanzo to stay, but he didn’t. Sanzo only stayed when he wanted to, and had an excuse.

Sometimes, guiltily, Goku missed the chain smoking, because it had kept Sanzo in one place for hours, still and sometimes, if it was a good day, almost relaxed. Now he seldom seemed even that peaceful.

“I don’t know what to do,” Goku said aloud after Sanzo had left.

Huamei let the spit-darkened blanket fall from her mouth and made an inquisitive noise, her eyes searching before they settled on Goku. Then she made another noise and gestured with a fist, impatiently and with a furrow of her brows.

“Yeah, why don’t we go find breakfast,” Goku told her, smiling despite himself.

Chapter 3:

They got a late start that day, but Hakkai said they had less than half a day’s travel left anyway. They did drive wrong and had to ask for directions a few times, so by the time Jeep rumbled up the steep mountain road leading towards the out-of-the-way location, the sun was beginning to sink low in the sky.

The mountain was surrounded by forest, dark green and already mostly in shadow. Goku could see fields and buildings in the horizon. Hakkai had mentioned there was a city not too far from the place.

Eventually it was safer to continue by foot, though none of them were exactly thrilled by the realization.

Huamei had slept for most of the journey, only waking a few times to announce she was hungry or needed a change of diapers. Every time it had prompted an argument on who would do it this time, with Sanzo predictably and firmly exempting himself. In the end they just took turns, and for the first time Goku cursed his new sharp senses.

She woke when they exited Jeep, head moving around quizzically until she seemed to conclude that the change in affairs was nothing to be concerned about and she began to chew on her blanket instead.

The basket was heavy on top of the rest of their luggage, so they took turns in carrying that too.

Huamei lay in it as it swung, peering up serenely and occasionally making little noises. Goku had gotten the impression that babies were difficult, but Huamei was pretty easy to handle, so far. She slept a lot and only cried when she really needed something.

He grinned down at her, and could have sworn she smiled back at him.

The sky was turning pink now, the last rays of the sun hitting the higher peaks in the distance, like they were topped in gold. As they walked, Goku kept feeling strangely like he’d seen those forms before, even though he’d never been to this part of the country.

The road narrowed further, parts of it clearly built by humans long ago. He brushed a hand against the stone at the side of the path. It still kept some warmth from the sun that had touched it not too long ago.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Gojyo asked dubiously, grimacing as he pulled at a strap from his heavy bag that was digging into his shoulder.

“As far as I can tell, never having been here before,” Hakkai replied with a fake smile, causing Gojyo to sigh and glance at Sanzo, walking last and without luggage.

Before Gojyo had time to say anything, Goku hastened to say.

“Well if we don’t find it we can always stay the night in one of the caves!”

“Eh, what caves?” Gojyo asked.

Of course there were caves, Goku thought, and then wondered how he knew that.

“Uh… Hakkai said something about caves before… right?” he looked hopefully towards Hakkai, who looked bemused.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised with this kind of geography but…”

Gojyo leaned in close to Goku with a faux concerned expression, before knocking on his forehead lightly.

“Starting to go senile now, eh monkey? Going straight from being a brat to an old man, that’s tragic…” he sighed theatrically as Goku sputtered.

“I’m not…! If anyone’s gonna go senile it’s an old lecher sprite like you!”

“Gojyo, Goku, please…” Hakkai demurred ineffectively. He had Huamei’s basket on his arm, the big handle hanging from the crook of it like he was carrying a shopping basket.

They might have argued more, but there was an… absence.

Goku looked around, and realized Sanzo was standing right where the two of them were blocking the path. He was just looking at them with a blank expression, and not even like he was preparing to pull out a weapon. He was just there.

“Uh,” Gojyo said into the silence.

“Move,” Sanzo said, and, probably in shock over the lack of anger in it, Gojyo did, pressing back against the stone wall so Sanzo could get by between them, continuing to walk onwards along the path. He was limping a little, Goku noticed.

“Is he…” Gojyo began to say and then didn’t finish the sentence. Hakkai was looking after Sanzo too, with by now familiar concern.

“He’s just tired,” Goku said, too loudly and surprising even himself with the vehemence in his voice. “Let’s get going,” he added, ignoring the look Gojyo was giving him.

It might have had pity in it, and if Goku looked too closely he might have wanted to start a real fight. There wasn’t enough room here for that.

The road widened again, enough that three people could have comfortably walked side by side. It curved around the side of the mountain at a gentle slope upwards. When they came fully around the bend they saw a wooden gate ahead.

The top beam had clearly once been elaborately carved, but was now so weatherworn it was hard to tell what it was even meant to be. Chips of gold paint still hid in the deeper swirls of the coiling dragons with their chipped, worn forms.

“We should be close now,” Hakkai commented cheerfully.

“Fucking finally,” Gojyo said, like an echo.

Beyond the gate, the path continued in the form of long stairs, as well worn as the way so far had been.

After seemingly endless stairs, they arrived at the top and were met by a much bigger gate, this one complete with watch towers and heavy brass doors.

“They should have been expecting us,” Hakkai said as they stood there in silence looking at the closed doors. “Though there was a bit of an unexpected delay,” he glanced meaningfully at the basket that Gojyo had just put down on the ground, shaking out his arm and grimacing.

Goku stepped forward and knocked on the door, which shuddered and made a dull sound under his fist.

Almost immediately, a face peered out from one of the towers, a monk judging by the shaved head. He was squinting in the near darkness.

“Who’s there? What’s your business here?” he asked, looking them over.

Sanzo had been looking worse for the wear after the long climb, but as Goku watched he visibly gathered himself to meet the guard-monk with his usual haughty expression.

“Genjo Sanzo, 31st of China, here on the invitation of Abbot Seiran,” he stated coolly as the monk’s eyes widened.

“Oh! I heard you might be coming. You and your companions,” he added. “I’ll let you in right away, just a moment.”

He disappeared from view, and shortly after there was a sound of bolts being removed, a large lock being turned, and then the great door was slowly pushed open. The monk was now accompanied by a younger man, barely more than a boy, who was yawning and rubbing at his eyes as if he’d just woken up. He was holding a lit lantern in one hand.

“Welcome to Shuilian, please excuse the wait and step in,” the monk said politely, waiting until they were all in before laboriously closing, locking and bolting the door again. “We always close the gate at sunset and keep it locked until sunrise,” he explained.

“That seems prudent?” Hakkai commented politely, and the monk nodded.

“All the more in the last years… and with such important guests, now,” he said politely.

Then he seemed to notice Huamei, blinking in surprise.

“Oh, I wasn’t told there’d be…” he looked at all of them in turn, as if looking for an explanation.

“There wasn’t, we found her on the way,” Sanzo offered gruffly.

“Yes, there was a small settlement of youkai who appeared to have encountered some conflict. She was the only survivor,” Hakkai explained, in an even tone. A bit too even, Goku thought. He was as tired as the rest of them, he’d bet.

“How unfortunate,” the monk muttered, and Goku thought he meant it. “There are many orphaned youkai children recently. I believe the abbot is still working, and we’ve arranged rooms for you already if you wish to freshen up? Unless you’d rather meet him in the morning?”

“I’ll go see him now,” Sanzo replied tersely, and then as Hakkai cleared his throat meaningfully, Sanzo gave him an irate glance but added. “After dropping off all this shit.”

Goku thought he saw the monk’s mouth twitch, but he didn’t otherwise react to Sanzo’s coarse language, a point in his favour, if anyone asked Goku. Sanzo couldn’t be expected to be polite when he was this tired.

“Very well,” the monk said, “Shun, would you see to it that they get to the rooms and whatever they need?”

The younger man nodded sharply, looking more awake now.

“Right away, sir,” he replied, before gesturing for them to follow. There was a smallish courtyard beyond the gate, wreathed in shadow beyond the small circle of light made by the lantern. They passed another heavy door, this one left open.

“I supposed this one could be closed for defence as well?” Hakkai commented as they passed, and their guide, Shun, nodded.

“There are towers on it too,” he said, pointing out the structures with their ornate roofs.

“That seems unusually military for a monastery,” Hakkai said, and Shun shrugged with a small smile.

“I suppose, but we have a fair number of relics here… and I’ve heard some of the past holders of the Seiten scripture lived here, though the last one was when the current abbot was young.”

They walked through a few more courtyards and then across a balcony of a two-storey building built on a sheer stone wall, Shun telling them to watch their step as it was fairly narrow. Goku glanced down but could only see the stilts holding up the structure, some narrow ledges and billowing clouds of fog below that.

To the side, he saw a few similar buildings, looking like they had grown out of the stone.

“Just a bit more ahead, here, the steps might be a bit slippery at this time so watch your step…” as he led them down stairs carved into the stone.

He stopped at the next balcony and opened a door, waiting for all of them to get inside before closing it.

Inside, it smelled of old wood and incense, and below it, stone. As they walked along a hallway that stretched out further than could be expected from the narrow look of the house, Goku realised it extended inside the mountain.

“It’s not a large monastery,” Shun was saying, his voice low, probably in respect of the late hour. “But we have more than enough rooms.”

As they passed several doors, Goku could smell and hear the inhabitants. Many were sleeping, but he heard low voices talking in one room, before the door opened and a bald head peered outside curiously.

“What’s happening, Shun?” the young man asked, and then his eyes widened as he saw them. “Oh, it’s the Sanzo party? Cool! Welcome to Shuilin!”

There was a noise from the room across the walkway of someone turning and then a muffled “shut up Joshin…”

Shun was glancing at them and looking embarrassed. “Um,” he said, and then straightened up. “Since you’re awake, you can help get some warm water for them to the eastern mansion.” he told the other man.

“Ugh, ok, sure. Just a moment. You guys, come help me with that,” he said to someone inside the room.

When Goku glanced back, he could see two more heads peering through the doorway, and then hear a hushed conversation in their wake.

Shun was still looking embarrassed.

“Sorry about those guys, sirs,” he muttered.

Sanzo just grunted in reply, and Shun winced. Then he winced for another reason as Gojyo grinned and thumped his shoulder.

“Look, kid, we’re just a bunch of troublemakers, so none of that sirring.”

Shun gave him a nervous smile.

“If you say so, si, um, Mr. Sha,” he said dubiously.

They turned a few more corners and walked over a short walkway to another building, the four floors of it standing alone on a ledge protruding out of a corner of the mountain, so there was open air on all three sides of it.

“This is the eastern mansion. We’ve prepared the middle two floors for you. The second for your holiness and the other for your companions.”

The walkway had led them directly to the second floor, and Shun showed them around. This one had a narrow hallway with stairs at the end, letting into a common room and behind it, a bedroom dominated by a large and intricately carved bed. There was a smaller unobtrusive door at the side, but Shun didn’t remark on it.

“Oh look, they made up the wedding bed for you,” Gojyo commented, snickering.

Sanzo gave him a disgusted look, while Hakkai laughed politely.

“I believe that would be a traditional design from the Ming-dynasty, Gojyo, which would account for the similarity,” he said, while Gojyo rolled his eyes.

“Sure, nerd,” he said fondly.

Shun led them on, now blushing, to the third floor, which held a hallway and three bedrooms, not as large as the one on the previous but comfortable enough. Goku picked the first one, dropped his luggage on the floor, along with the basket with Huamei, and then fell on the bed, testing the mattress.

It was nice to have one, he’d forgotten how rough sleeping outside was in the few months since they returned from India and before setting off here. And then his stomach growled loudly.

Shun let out a nervous laugh where he was still hovering in the doorway.

“Ah, I’ll see about getting food. Joshin and the others should be here with water for washing in a moment, and, um, everything else should be ready?”

“Yes, thank you so much,” Hakkai replied, already returning from surveying the other room.

They ate in the common room on the second floor, since it was the one with a table in it. Huamei’s formula was warmed on a little coal burner in a pan that Shun had brought. She ate and then blinked sleepily up at roof once being laid back in the basket.

“She sure can sleep,” Gojyo said, poking at Huamei’s forehead with one finger and then grinned as her eyes went crossed.

He was leaning over the basket one moment, and the next yelped as Huamei grasped a lock of his hair in each hand and gave it a firm tug.

“Augh!” Gojyo hissed. “Owowow! Leggo you…!”

Huamei just burbled and brought the hair to her mouth, ignoring Gojyo’s protests.

He finally managed to free his hair, but Huamei was left with a few long strands of red.

“Sonofabitch,” Gojyo cursed, over Goku’s laughter and Hakkai’s chuckles.

“Language Gojyo, there are children present,” he said mildly.

“Like she’s gonna remember,” Gojyo grumbled. “Ow, how can a kid that small have such a strong grip…”

Sanzo had been sitting quietly at the table for most of the dinner, picking at his plate. Now, he took out a cigarette and after some more rummaging in his sleeves, a lighter.

“Ah, Sanzo,” Hakkai began.

“What?” Sanzo asked tersely, putting down the lighter he’d raised to the cigarette hanging from his mouth. “I’ve told you I—”

“Well, your health is your business, I suppose,” Hakkai said, his tone saying he really didn’t suppose it. “But there is someone else with fragile lungs here too.”

He glanced meaningfully towards Huamei’s basket.

Sanzo seemed unimpressed, but tsked and got up.

“Fine! I’m going to smoke in my room, you bastards finish eating so we can go greet the abbot,” he said over his shoulder on the way to the bedroom

“Thanks for the company to you too,” Gojyo called sarcastically and got a raised middle finger from Sanzo. Gojyo snorted and lay back on the floor.

“So, how long do you think we’ll be sticking around here?” he asked after a while, glancing at Hakkai who was still nursing the last of his tea.

“That would… depend on Sanzo, I suppose. He hasn’t exactly shared his plans with me,” he said in between sips.

“Dunno if he knows either,” Goku replied slowly. “We just came here right? We haven’t even met this abbot dude yet.”

Hakkai hummed thoughtfully, and they spent a few minutes in rare comfortable silence as the familiar smell of cigarettes drifted in from the other room.

After a while, Hakkai set down his once again empty teacup and frowned.

“Goku, would you…” he began, but Goku was already on his feet.

“Yeah,” he said, walking over to the bedroom door and stepping inside cautiously after there was no reply to his knock.

Inside, the air was cool and smelled of cigarette smoke. When he stepped in further he could see Sanzo had opened the window behind the bed and moonlight was streaming into the otherwise dark room.

He was asleep, sitting up with his back against the frame of the bed. One hand was resting on the window sill, the cigarette having fallen out of lax fingers and extinguished on its own, luckily.

Goku tiptoed closer, leaning on the side of the bed to observe him.

This trip really had been tough on Sanzo, he thought. The moonlight left him bleached of what colour he had and showed the shadows under his eyes in sharp relief against the pale lashes. He looked distant, in that light, asleep and still except for the slow rise and fall of his chest under the white robes.

And then, as Goku stood there looking, his lashes fluttered, and his eyes opened just a little. His face was too relaxed, and his eyes didn’t quite focus, which told Goku that he wasn’t really awake.

When Goku reached out a hand he leaned into it. His cheek was cool from the night air, and Goku frowned, thinking of the time last month when Sanzo got rained on while out on a walk and then got feverish for a week.

From rain!

Goku could feel the slight unevenness of scars on Sanzo’s face under his fingertips, from when Kougaiji had burned him. They didn’t show much, but the skin had slightly different texture there.

Sanzo mumbled something indistinct, still asleep, and Goku thought what it said that he didn’t wake, even though Goku was touching him.

Well, he was probably really tired, but still… and maybe he shouldn’t be doing this, Goku thought with a stab of guilt. It was a bit creepy, when he wasn’t awake.

When Goku really wanted to kiss him, and other things he tried not to think about while Sanzo was right there in case he saw.

What was it Hassan had said after he’d tried to kiss Sharak? That he failed as a companion, for wanting more than that.

Goku hadn’t thought he ever would. He still didn’t. He just wanted Sanzo to be… content, at least.

Because he’d noticed long ago he wasn’t, a lot of the time. When he’d thought about, which hadn’t been often, Goku supposed he’d hoped things would be ok after they defeated the bad guys and Sanzo got his master’s sutra back. If not better at least… but it was like they were worse, somehow.

It was getting to Goku, and he still didn’t know what to do.

“Noisy,” Sanzo said quietly, his eyes still half-open and dreaming, even though Goku hadn’t said anything. Goku leaned his head down, something caught in his throat.

Approaching footsteps behind the door, a moment’s hesitation, and Goku had leaned back by the time Hakkai actually opened the door, his face inscrutable as he surveyed the two of them.

Sanzo started, waking properly and squinting at the two of them irritably.

“What?” he asked, voice rough, and then moved to stare in dismay at the dead cigarette, before flicking it out the window.

“Well, it was a while…” Hakkai began and trailed off mid-sentence.

Goku didn’t like the look he was giving him. It was too neutral, and made him feel more antsy when he was already… whatever. This sucked.

“We’re supposed to go see that abbot guy, aren’t we?” he said, and it came out too abrupt and loud, but he didn’t really care.

Hakkai’s eyebrows rose and Sanzo gave him an odd look too, but Goku was already stomping out of the room, ignoring whatever Gojyo was saying.

He suddenly wanted to be alone, properly alone. Except the damn monastery was built on a damn mountain and there was no damn way out, not one Goku knew anyway. He walked briskly, almost at a run, and passed the walkway, and the hallway and then turned the other way from where they had come, and climbed up some stairs and through a pagoda at the top and down more stairs and then—

There was the sound of water, trickling, falling over stone.

A waterfall, the drops glistening white in the moonlight, and at first Goku thought the stone behind it was just dark from the water, until his eyes focused properly, and he realized it was a cave, with a rocky path leading to it.

Goku didn’t like caves, but there was something about this one that intrigued him. Or maybe it was just a welcome distraction. Before he could do more than look at it, though, he heard a voice calling his name.

A very familiar voice. And an irritated one.

He took one last look at the cave before going back the way he’d come. Sanzo and the others were standing at the balcony of the building where Goku had turned the other way, together with Shun who looked first harried and then relieved when he saw Goku.

Sanzo just looked pissed.

“See there, a monkey’s not gonna fall off a mountain,” Gojyo said, possibly to Shun since the boy offered him a nervous smile in reply.

“Where the hell did you going?” Sanzo asked almost at the same time, and Goku felt his hackles rise again despite himself.

“Nowhere!” he snapped, and Sanzo’s eyes flashed in reply to the tone and he opened his mouth to say something when Hakkai spoke over him, in that faux-cheerful way that fooled no one.

“Well!” he said, and then after a slightly too long pause: “We shouldn’t keep abbot Seiran waiting, I’m sure he needs his sleep too.”

Sanzo’s lips snapped shut, his eyes still flashing with irritation. Goku looked away.

After being led through the monastery again on a slightly different and more complex route, they found themselves at a yet another small courtyard, the two-story houses topped by heavily ornamented roofs.

Most of the latticed windows were dark, but Shun took them towards the single through which a light was shining, opening a door and announcing them, his voice shaking slightly with nerves.

There were two monks in the room. One sat at a writing table, presumably a secretary of some kind. Goku presumed the older monk was the abbot.

He surprised Goku.

He noticed the scars on his face first, like someone had tried to claw it off and just barely missed. And as he stood up, with some difficulty, from behind his table, Goku realized he was missing an arm as well, one sleeve of the heavy robes he was wearing empty.

He might have just been in an accident, but there was something about him that told Goku’s instincts that this man had been a fighter, once. Maybe something about the still sharp gaze and how it swept over them, evaluating.

Abbot Seiran nodded, his lips curving into a small but genuine smile.

“Welcome to Shuilin, Genjo Sanzo and companions,” he said, bowing.

Sanzo inclined his head in reply.

Seiran walked around the table, leaning heavily on a walking cane. His eyes crinkled as he surveyed Sanzo.

“We have met, as it happens, but I don’t expect you would remember,” he said.

Sanzo narrowed his eyes in consideration, and then said:

“No, I’m afraid.”

Abbot Seiran nodded.

“What happened at Kinzan was… unfortunate,” he said slowly, old sorrow in the words. “I lost more than one old friend that night.”

Sanzo met his gaze with an inscrutable look, and after a moment the old man continued:

“But that was a long time ago. I can’t say I expected you to make such a long journey, especially so soon, but it’s a welcome surprise. If I may, I’d wish to congratulate you on completing your mission, I know there are many with reason to thankful that the minus wave is gone.”

Sanzo was frowning by the time he was done.

“Perhaps,” he replied tersely. “And many for whom it matters little.”

Abbot Seiran smiled, but it was a wan.

“True, perhaps,” he agreed. “There is much work left to done, certainly.”

Sanzo nodded, grudging even in agreement.

Abbot Seiran looked towards Huamei’s basket.

“I heard of the incident you encountered on the way,” he remarked as he walked over to sit down again, gesturing for them to follow suit.

“I’m afraid it’s not the first of that kind that I know of. Many are finding it difficult to believe that the minus wave is truly over, or to care that the youkai were not fully responsible for their actions. There were problems before, but now…”

“They want an eye for an eye,” Sanzo said, his voice cold. “It’s human nature, don’t you think?”

Beside him, Goku heard Hakkai make a small noise that might have been a stifled laugh.

“You agree with them?” Abbot Seiran asked, his voice mild and neutral, almost distracted.

For a moment, he and Sanzo surveyed each other, some nameless tension hanging in the air, and then Sanzo snorted and broke it.

“They’re idiots,” he said. “It’ll bring them nothing but more misery.”

Abbot Seiran set his one hand on the table, the knobby fingers laid flat.

“Indeed,” he said. “I’ve done what I can, sent envoys to speak to leaders and regular people, and others to aid returning youkai… but it feels at times as if trying to stop a falling avalanche…” for some reason, the last made him smile for a moment, and then he shook his head.

“Be that as it may, it will not be solved tonight, and I’m keeping you awake after such a long journey.”

Shun, who had been in the process of yawning, blinked and then went red as the abbot’s eyes flickered amusedly in his direction.

“Yessir!” he said, and then his face crumpled in dismay. “I mean, agh, nevermind…” the last came out nearly at a whimper, and Goku could see even the secretary was hiding a smile behind the stack of papers he’d picked up to supposedly straighten.

“Yes, why don’t you take them back and go to bed yourself, Shun,“ the abbot told him kindly.

“Yes, thank you sir,” Shun mumbled, his face flaming as he bowed deep.

The boy was nearly stumbling as they walked back, yawning several times.

“I do think we’ll find the way from here,” Hakkai told him, after the third time.

“Oh, I… my room is on the way, but if you’re sure…?”

“Yes, thank you.”

That being agreed, Shun bid them a sleepy good night from the door of one of the rooms in the hallway where they’d met the monk whose name Goku had already forgotten, and they went ahead to the eastern apartment and made for their own rooms.

They drew lots on who would have the baby for the night and consequently be on diaper duty, which Gojyo lost, grumbling about Hakkai cheating, somehow.

Goku lay in bed, listening to the sounds of Hakkai and Gojyo going to bed in their rooms, until it got quiet.

He lay awake, finding he was tired but not sleepy, the tension from earlier keeping him awake.

Finally he sighed and pushed his pyjama pants down past his hips, taking himself in hand, determined not to think about anything in particular. Or at least anyone in particular.

Think about… hands, that was good, moving down his body like they meant business, not hurried but brisk, determined, but touching him all over, almost greedily. Strong hands, with long fingers, callouses where—and a mouth, a bite here or there.

He twisted at a nipple and bit his lip so as not to make any noise, thrusting into his other hand, coming so fast it was almost dissatisfying, and then lay there breathing fast.

It’d been a while since he’d had a chance to be alone, since before they’d left Kei’un.

Goku sighed, staring at the shadowed ceiling. No more direct moonlight, it must have moved to be above them by now. He felt less antsy now, but heavier.

He closed his eyes and breathed, thoughts returning to what he’d been trying to avoid before.

Sanzo.

When did he realize…? He’d probably loved him since he saw him, because how could he have done anything different.

Now that he had all his memories, he wondered if… but no. Sanzo and Konzen may have had the same soul, but they weren’t the same person.

And maybe Goku wasn’t either, whether because he’d forgotten or because he’d grown. So yeah, he’d loved Sanzo because he was the one who had reached out and pulled him out of the cave, and because he was the one Goku had trusted to make everything right and because he wanted to stand at his side and do what he could to help him carry that burden on his shoulders.

Even if, maybe, Sanzo really couldn’t make everything right after all, and was just stumbling along the best he could like they all were.

When was the first time he thought about… the other thing?

Probably that time after he fought with one of the kids at the monastery, mad because Goku had won one too many times playing catch that day. He’d called him a name, Goku had gotten angry but not angry enough to forget he wasn’t supposed to hit the other kids because he was too strong, so he’d just shouted instead, and then they’d both gotten told off for being loud.

Later that day Hakkai had visited to teach him writing, and Goku had looked up from his picture book to ask (he snorted to himself recalling it now, eyes still closed)

“—Hakkai, what’s a catamite?” he’d asked.

Hakkai had gotten this pinched look on his face and asked him where he’d heard that, and Goku had explained that Zhao had called him that but he didn’t know what it meant either, just that an older monk had said Goku was one and it was something bad.

At which point Hakkai looked even more pinched and asked Goku if he recalled their talk about how babies were made and why he couldn’t go bathe in the river with the baker’s daughter, which he did (and besides had already known from Huan whose family kept pigs, seriously, he just hadn’t thought it had anything to do with him and Lan going swimming).

And after a lot of talk that only kinda seemed related to the topic, Hakkai sighed and said:

“What they think… or claim to think, is that Sanzo has, ah, touched you, in a special way. All over, without clothes. Like how Lan’s father was worried you and Lan might have, and why he got mad.”

“Oh,” Goku said, and then “And that’d be bad?” It didn’t sound bad, inherently. He liked Sanzo touching him, those rare times he did. Although if he was naked that might be… that was kind of strange idea. Not necessarily bad but. Strange.

Hakkai coughed, sounding like he was choking a little, and Goku forgot about the tingling sensation in his stomach in lieu of giving him a concerned look.

“Well,” Hakkai managed eventually. “At your age, yes. Or, if you didn’t want him to… really, Goku, it was more of an insult on Sanzo than on you.”

And then he’d gotten rather loud and wanted to find Zhao right away to make him tell which monk had said that so Goku could make him take it back… and he had too, or at least that guy had gotten a nasty surprise one day when he woke up… Goku grinned viciously to himself.

But yes, it had taken him several more years to really figure it out, but in hindsight that was the first time the idea had presented itself, in anything resembling concrete form.

He’d been such a child back then.

Strange to think that Sanzo had been younger then than he was now… insofar as they knew how old he was, anyway. Those 500 years in the cave didn’t really count, and there was little sense of time in his new-old memories of heaven. It felt like he’d been there a long time and no time at all, at once. Maybe time moved differently there, or maybe he’d just been so young…

Goku drifted to sleep between one thought and another

#fanfic #chandabeard #gifter: snail_stand #saiyuki secret santa #submission

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